Katie’s Cards Asks: Is this the End of the Paper Christmas Card?

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Christmas ecard provider suggests that it's the beginning of the end for the paper Christmas card industry because of the rise of social media and the increasing popularity of the ecard.

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Recent reports suggest a decline in the number of Christmas cards being sent each year. However, this doesn't mean we're a nation of scrooges, as the number of Christmas and festive messages being sent is on the rise.

(PRWEB)December 20, 2012

Katie’s Cards, UK ecard provider, today announced that the growing use of Christmas ecards and social media networks may be signalling the beginning of the end for the paper Christmas card. Katie’s Cards have recently reached record-breaking numbers of membership subscriptions and Christmas corporate ecard orders, demonstrating the rise of the ecard and suggesting that the decline of the paper card is a reality.

Katie Davies, owner of Katie’s Cards, has said that “recent reports ('Decline in Christmas Greetings on the Cards for 2010,' Mintel Oxygen Reports, Nov. 2010) do suggest a decline in the number of Christmas cards being sent each year. However, this doesn’t mean we’re a nation of scrooges, as the number of Christmas and festive messages being sent is on the rise.”

As people continue to seek ways to adapt to tightened budgets and rising living costs, ecards provide a cost-effective way of sending personal festive messages to loved ones. For the equivalent price of one or two paper greetings cards, people can often purchase a subscription to an ecard website where they can send unlimited numbers of ecards throughout the duration of their membership. The world is becoming increasingly digital and so it seems to be a natural progression that increasing numbers of people are sending electronic cards. The effects that this digitalisation has had on the music and the publishing industries is evident and it seems that the greeting card industry is now undergoing a similar shift. People are using their laptops, tablets and mobile phones to access information and communicate with their friends and family more than ever before. It’s natural, therefore, that the way people send and receive Christmas greetings will change as well.

The growth of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter has compounded this growth and many more people, especially the younger generations, are communicating online rather than on paper. In response to this, many ecard websites now allow members to access their online ‘friends’ list and send ecards via social media websites like Facebook. This allows personal greetings to be sent instantly across the world and means that people can link all of their online accounts to each other.

With environmental concerns growing in both civil society and amongst corporations, the need to be environmentally friendly constitutes another reason why people are increasingly choosing to send ecards instead of paper cards. The pressure on big corporations to decrease their carbon footprint and to become as paperless as possible has never been greater. Few resources are needed to create and send ecards and, consequently, one can send hundreds of ecards with minimal impact on the environment.

As Katie Davies continued, “Here at Katie’s Cards we’re seeing a rise in membership and a rise in the number of Christmas and seasonal messages being sent out. This means that people are still celebrating Christmas, they’re just choosing not to send a paper card."

This rise in membership numbers indicates that increasing numbers of people are taking advantage of the fact that ecards are not affected by last postal collection dates: You can keep sending Christmas ecards all the way up to and on Christmas Day because delivery is instant. This is another advantage of the ecard that people of all ages and all over the world seem to be seizing.

Although only time will tell if this really is the beginning of the end of the paper Christmas card, festive greetings are still as popular as ever. It simply seems that ecards give people the tools to adapt their communications to different online platforms and, in an increasingly globalised and digitalised world, the attraction of this cannot be underestimated.

About Katie’s Cards
http://www.katiescards.com was established in 2007 and provides a range of over 200 ecards to consumers, for a range of international holidays and celebrations. It recently launched a business Ecard service, offering organisations the ability to send static, animated or bespoke Ecards to their stakeholders. For more information on its consumer division, visit http://www.katiescards.com; for its business division: http://www.katiescards.com/company, or follow the company on Facebook.